Battle of the Pelennor Fields using War of the Sundered Realms Rules.

 

So after the success of the last game I was very keen to try the war of the Sundered Realms rules again. So for the next game I decided to go for another classic battle from Middle Earth.

https://cruciumgiger.blogspot.com/2020/08/war-of-sundered-realms.html.

This time it would be the legendary battle off the Pelenor fields. I can still remember my excitement when I read the account of this battle in the Return of the King when I was a teenager - which is a very long time ago. We used the army list from the war of the Sundered Realms.

This time I decided that this would be an objective based game rather than just a head on battle. Considering that the objective of the riders of Rohan was to drive off the Mordor forces I thought that capturing territory would be a good benchmark for success. So I placed six objective markers on the table in front of the walls of Minas Tirith,  each one of these was worth one point to either side in addition either side could score points for killing an enemy character. There were three characters on the good side each worth one point there were two characters on the evil side one worth one point and one was two points.

This was not the full battle as I wanted it to play out in an afternoon, so the landings from Harlond did not figure in the game. 

The game started with the riders of Rohan already on the board and ready to attack the flank of the Mordor army with the men of Gondor still in the citadel. 

In the event the game played really well initially the riders of Rohan used archery soften up the orcs but the Mordor player was having none of this and quickly turned his orcs to face and charged wherever he could rather than stand and be peppered. Even though the orcs stood no chance in combat their job was to hold up the riders of Rohan until the men of the South could come forward.

The men of Gondor came out of the citadel as quickly as they could but suffered severely from southern archery fire not helped by me misreading the table and giving the men of the South too many shots!

It did not take long for the riders of Rohan to dispose of the orcs but not without casualties. In the meantime the men of the South moved to intercept the men of Gondor and to face off against the riders of Rohan. The advantage of numbers despite poor quality meant that the men of the South defeated the men of Gondor, on the other side of the table the men of the South successfully blocked the advance of the riders of Rohan.

The characters on both sides stayed out of the action until the end of the game. The final score was that the good forces scored three points the Evil forces five points. It was a really good game and another successful outing for these excellent rules. We found that archery was very effective and we might reduce its effectiveness in future by reducing range and adding a pip to the score needed to hit.

Despite the size of the forces involved the game played out in around 4 hours, testament to the playability of this excellent set of rules.

The table at the start of the game. The siege towers and trebuchets are fluff and have no effect on the game.

A closer view. The figures in the foreground are 1970s castings bought when I was at school.

The Rohirrim arrive.

Orcs vs men of Rohan.

Southrons turn to confront the Rohirrim. The terrain cloth is from Dunelm (its green but it was very sunny so it looks paler than it is), the Mumak from Poundland.

The men of Gondor sally out from the city to support the Rohirrim.

The king's guard cavalry destroy another enemy unit. This unit destroyed about half a dozen Mordor units before it went down in the process of destroying a unit of Southrons.

The kings guard finish off a unit of Mordor cavalry which have been badly hit by archery fire.

A Southron unit is flanked and destroyed, but inflicts significant casualties. This is another unit from the 70s which has fought on many a battlefield.

A Poundland Mumak, on loan from the Carthaginian army.

Mumaks and the Witch King line up against the Rohirrim.

Old Britain's toy Mumak in the flank - ouch!

The King's Guard run down yet another unit.

Now its the Mumak's turn to receive a flank charge.

The Witch King gets stuck in.

Theoden, Eomer and Eowyn all attack a lone Nazgul. Undeterred, he kills one and holds off the other two until the end of the game.

The end of the game. The Nazgul is still fighting. After the end of the game we played the combat through and the two Rohan heroes did eventually manage to finish him off.